Very Computer

Hi all,

I'm fairly new to linux and want to install 3 versions on my 30 gig
hard drive to play around with:

Red hat 7.1
Slackware 8.0
and a linuxfromscratch version that i will build off one of those

My question is, how to I properly partition the hard drive so that
each can coexist well? Any guidance appreciated!

Bob

Three 10 gig partitions?

or three 5 gig partions and one 15 gig.
(use the 15 gig for /home, which you can
share with all versions.)

My 1st hard disk (30 gig) is partitioned:
20 GB -- W98
5  GB -- Slackware 8.0
5  Gb -- LFS
One of the partitions on my second disk is 20 GB for
/home.

John

What about a swap partition?  Could a global one be set
up like the /home partition, or do different distributions
use different ways of doing a swap?

Greg

You could cut up a single linux installation in this way ( note that
this is only what I once started out with )

/boot - the kernels that you can boot go here. Keep this part
*completely* within the 1024 cylinder limit. That way, even an older
lilo can be used to boot a kernel. About 10 MB is generous.

/        - the root .  Give this about 500 mb.

/tmp   - a small temporary location where files are stored temporarily

/var   - the "varying" directory. Here is where programs store their
process id ( Exampe the adsl program pppoe, the syslogd, klogd etc..
)   or any other changing info such as the name cache of your dns
server etc., the mail and printer spools may be found here as well,
among other things. /var/log/messages is the file the system lof file.

/home  - under this directory are the directories of the users such
as you. I usually start off with about 2 gigs

/usr      - All the programs we run, from the x server to the desktop
environments to the movie players and develpment environments are
under this. In the case of mandrake I gave it 2.5 gigs

that's the general idea.

I boot mandrake and redhat  ( they're on separate disks ) by using
Mandrake's new LILO.

After mandrake was instaled, I copied over the kernel for redhat into
mandrake's /boot directory and added it to the lilo.conf file.

You would have to keep separate root , usr and var directories for
each installation, as each has it's own ways.

tmp, and swap can be shared because you do no harm if on bootup you
clear tmp; and swap is taken care of by the kernel.

home *may* be shareable between the various installations depending
on the version of the tools used. For example, my mandrake uses a
newer gnome than what is on my redhat system. Hence it would not be
prudent to use the same home directory.

hth
bye